


Three Words that Became Hard to Say

by EveryDayBella



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cemetery, Civil War, F/M, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, because Stupid set pictures have ruined my mind, god that movie is gonna kill me, graves, just a heap loud of pain, the character death is Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryDayBella/pseuds/EveryDayBella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Steve goes back to the cemetery after everything has been cleared, after everyone has paid their respects, cried their tears, and fled to escape the rain. After the sun has disappeared and surrendered to the omnipresent night, Steve returns with a heavy heart and no idea how to feel.</p><p>He should be sad, upset, and broken up standing there in front of grey stone and upturned earth. He knows he should be because that’s what love has always done to him. For one beautiful, shining moment, everything would be full of light and color only to be drained away the next. What started out as good would be taken away from him. It had happened over and over, his mother, Bucky, the Commandos, the Avengers.</p><p>Bucky."</p><p> </p><p>On the day Steve lost a love, he gained hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Words that Became Hard to Say

**Author's Note:**

> Stupid set pictures. Stupid. I got to thinking about Steve visiting Peggy and thinking about Bucky and this all came out. God I'm not going to survive this movie. Just kill me now. 
> 
> Huge love to Angelycdevil for putting up with me and helping me find the ending. I love you baby! This is all your fault. And MyHeroin for betaing and fixing my commas. I love you too.
> 
> Title comes from I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers which is one of the most Stuckiest song to ever happen.

**Three Words that Became Hard to Say**

Steve goes back to the cemetery after everything has been cleared, after everyone has paid their respects, cried their tears, and fled to escape the rain. After the sun has disappeared and surrendered to the omnipresent night, Steve returns with a heavy heart and no idea how to feel.

He should be sad, upset, and broken up standing there in front of grey stone and upturned earth. He knows he should be because that’s what love has always done to him. For one beautiful, shining moment, everything would be full of light and color only to be drained away the next. What started out as good would be taken away from him. It had happened over and over, his mother, Bucky, the Commandos, the Avengers.

Bucky. Steve shivers in a rain drenched suit and feels guilty, because even standing in front of her grave he can’t stop thinking about Bucky. He tried, he tried so many times during the war to just move on like his best friend told him to. Too just be happy with a pretty, smart, brilliant woman. He’d tried so hard, only to fail every time. No matter how much he loved her, it would always come back to Bucky.

He sucks in a harsh sob, refusing to break. She deserves a lot better than that. Better than him at any rate.

Cold, grey stone with not a bit of fading or chipping. New. Beautiful in a morbid way. Steve almost reaches over to touch it. To trace the freshly carved letters and words. He doesn’t. It would make it all too real.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why he just feels so numb. It hasn’t sunk in yet. It isn’t like this is unexpected. She was as old as he should be. Like his other old friend, she didn’t always remember him either. Between Project Insight, and Ultron, the Avengers, and this thing developing between him and Tony, Steve hadn’t been able to pay her the attention he should have. (Repeating the past. Again. Like it seemed he was doomed to do.) He’s distanced himself from her without meaning to, and now here he is wishing he felt more than he does.

It cuts through Steve’s heart like a warm knife through butter. He’s always letting people down. He’s never been quite right, either to weak to throw a punch, or throwing ones with too much strength. Not enough to save Bucky. He’s not enough to keep the bad things from happening. He can save the world once for it just to happen all over again.

People around him die. People around him get hurt. People around him suffer. It’s as easy as thinking about Wanda’s tear streaked face as she mourned her brother, or Bucky’s horror stricken eyes moments before he fell to the Potomac to know the truth—he gets people hurt and that’s why he’s always alone.

(If he were braver he would distance himself from Natasha and Sam before he can do the same to them.)

So here he is. In front of a fresh grave, in the rain, seventy years from where he should be. He should never have been able to carry her casket out of the church. He shouldn’t have had to watch her deteriorate with perfect accuracy. He shouldn’t have gotten to hear about her perfect life without hearing about his own.

It’s not the first time he wishes they’d never woken him up out of the ice. They should have just left him there. Nothing had hurt, and he didn’t have lose people there.

It was kinda nice.

Steve has no idea what he’s doing there, not quite mourning a life a he never got to live, trying to say goodbye to a woman he’d said goodbye to a long time ago. He has no idea what he’s doing anymore. Leading a new team of Avengers, fighting with Tony, not looking for his best friend. Two years and uncountable distractions has caused the trail to go cold.

Another thing to add to his list of faults. He never did anything about his brainwashed best friend. That’s how bad he is.

Steve opened his mouth, tries to force words out. That’s what he came for after all. Just to say his last respects in privacy, but he’s got nothing but his own regrets and the freezing rain.

He’s about to turn back around, head home, maybe stop in the coffee shop and people watch for a while and try to draw when a voice he would recognize on any street, in any year greets his ear like an homecoming.

“You shouldn’t stand out in the rain, punk. You’ll get sick. What am I going to do with you then?”

For one beautiful, blissful second he’s taken back to nineteen thirty-nine. He’s in front of his mother's grave, and Bucky is trying to talk him into coming back home. Steve grasps the memory with two hands, clinging and pleading for it not to go anywhere. He wants those colors again, those sights, those smells, those blissful nights when he wasn’t alone and he was loved. So loved and protected.

It slips away, just like it always does. The present isn’t so bad for a moment because he can turn on his heel and there he is. Leaning against a tree twelve steps from him. Half hidden in shadows, left arm gleaming just a little in the soft light, hair still long and falling in his face, but still completely Bucky. His Bucky. His best friend since they were kids. His protector. His something more that they’d never bothered to put a label on. His.

Steve can’t do anything but breathe his name into the rain and headstones. Like a prayer long whispered for a hope of redemption or a desperate plea for someone to save him for a change. A fresh wave of guilt almost knocks out his knees, while at same time almost propelling him forward to stumble into those arms. Then comes the fear and he hates that more than anything. The last time he’d seen that face, Bucky had nearly beaten the life out of him. He’s defenceless here and he didn’t bring his shield. He feels awful for even thinking he might need it, and yet here they are, separated by seventy years of trauma and lives left unlived.

And all the same, there he is, and Steve doesn’t know what to say.

“You’d think after two years, the guy who’s been chasing me down might have something to say.”

There’s a tease in Bucky’s voice, and Steve wants to laugh or cry all at once. Instead, he just repeats his name. Again. “Bucky. How?”

Bucky shrugged his left shoulder, the image of nonchalant and at ease. He’s not. He’s tense as a string on one of Clint’s bows. He never could lie to Steve. Never. He knew all the tells. “I heard. About, uh, Peggy.”

“You remember?” Steve gasps, hope swelling in his chest.

“A little. Maybe.” Bucky, his Bucky because he has no other way to think of him, wraps his arms around himself like the cold has suddenly gotten to him. “I, uh, I remember her.”

Peggy. He remembers Peggy. It’s something at least. Bucky and Peggy had never been close, but they’re been acquaintances, if only because of Steve and all the time she spent with the Commandos. He remembers Peggy, and it feels like Steve has been punched in the gut because he remembers Peggy and not him. His Bucky and he does seem to remember that he was Bucky’s Steve.

“What, what do you remember?” Steve forces through his frozen lips, half afraid that if he doesn’t say something, then Bucky will disappear. Steve can’t go through that again. He just can’t. “About her, I mean?”

“I remember she’s a firecracker.” A slow, sly smile spreads across Bucky’s face and Steve aches to touch it, tastes it under his tongue. “I remember she knocked your big ass down once or twice.”

A startled laugh escapes Steve’s lips. He hurriedly presses his hands over his mouth, the sound foreign in so solemn in a setting. He’d almost forgotten those moments, stolen from the harried lives of soldiers. It was true though. She could take him down a peg or two, and he would let her. He always deserved it after all.

“Yeah, yeah she did.”

“I remember you loved her.”

“I did.” There’s not a second of hesitation when he says it. It’s the truth. He loved Peggy Carter. They could have had a long, happy life together if the universe had been kinder to them. But it wasn’t, and now they’re here and she’s gone.

It starts as a slow ache in his chest and grows untils a stabbing pain. Maybe it's just taken this long for it set in. Peggy’s gone. He’s never going to see her again. They never got their dance, and now he’s alone in the future he never wanted anything to do with. It all comes crashing down and he can’t hold in the tremors any more. He rattles apart like he has asthma again. Sobs for everything he has, and had, and everything in his impossibly long life that he’s lost. He’s never felt more alone than that moment.

Then he’s just not. He’s enveloped in a warmth that he hasn’t felt since he can’t remember. It’s something that he’s always loved about Bucky. He just exudes warmth. Its intoxicating in its own way. There’s a rational part of his brain telling him that he shouldn’t do this. That Bucky is dangerous these days and he really shouldn’t be this close to him. Steve has never been any good at the smart thing, the safe thing. It’s just not in his DNA. He grabs onto Bucky with everything that he’s got, buries his face in his old friends neck, and lets himself fall apart. It’s only place he'd ever felt safe enough to do that.

And Bucky, his sweet, kind, precious best friend, lover, neither word quite big enough to adequately describe what they had, was stiff underneath him. Muscles and tendons stretched to their limit, held carefully as if they might break. Metal arm at his side, more weapon than tool. It didn't make Steve let go, isn't sure at this point he could. He’s lost to his own sorrow and heartache, can't do anything but weep and breath Bucky in.

Then, like the first brush of springs warmth to unlock the frozen city, muscles uncoil slowly, an arm wraps around Steve's waist, pulling him closer and offering the comfort that only scared flesh could. A choked off whimper sounds when Bucky leans his forehead against the side of Steve's. Lips close enough to kiss, even if they don't but can still be felt. Steve shakes, somewhere in his sorrow swept haze knowing what this must cost Bucky, and yet he can't pull away.

"Shh, Steve." Bucky's rough voice,low in his ear. "It, it's okay. Okay? I remember you, Stevie."

The last unbroken piece of Steve's heart shatters completely because Bucky remembers him. Remembers the skinny, sickly, little boy with a chip on his shoulder and no idea how to stop. He remembers bright summer days in sweltering heat and sweat soaked bodies. Winters locked in ice and snow, fighting off fevers and colds. Tender smiles, hugs, shoulder shakes, late night cuddles to ease away the cold. A nickname Bucky had picked up from Steve's mother.

"You remember?" Each word sounds like it hurts, echoing from deep gasps and sobs pulled from his chest. "You remember me?"

"Can't very well forget you." He tries to laugh it off, but the words come out shaky and wet anyway. One hand, the warm one, the flesh one, grips the back of Steve's neck,it's unnatural counterpart still at his side. "I'm so sorry, Stevie. So sorry. I don't even know how to make it up."

Steve shakes his head, pulls away not fair enough to leave the warmth of his embrace, but he can see the shape of his face in the dark,the curve of his cheek, the strong line of his jaw, the cleft in his chin he always thought was adorable. Bucky's there. Standing in front of him. Breathing in the same air as him.

"Bucky." He gasps, awestruck, wondering if he'll ever get sick of saying that name. "Bucky. Oh, god. Its been two years, and I couldn't find you. I didn't look as hard as I should have and I'm so sorry I got distracted. Bucky, I..."

"Steve, Steve stop." Bucky cups the side of Steve's neck, the shock and thrill of it cutting off Steve's rambling with a soft sigh. "Its okay. Its not your fault. I didn't want to be found."

A low whine issues from Steve's mouth. Hurting because Bucky was alone when he needed him them most. Steve would never forgive himself for that. Never. "Did, did you mean to find me tonight?"

Shame colors his voice as he replies, "No. Until five minutes ago, I didn't know that I could look at you and not to follow my programing and kill you."

Steve hiccups, burrowing back into that inherent warmth that he's missed so much. Everything else has felt so cold. He thought it was the ice he'd been trapped in for decades. Maybe it was just the lack of Bucky all along.

"Buck, I'm sorry. I should have gone looking for you before, before all this happened."

"It's not your fault, pal." For the first time Steve can hear the chasm that has been ripped into Bucky’s  heart. Fingers twist into his jacket, clinging to the soggy fabric. Its natural to reverse the dynamic, for Steve to become the comforter, to pull that firm body into his broad chest and take part of that burden.

That was just how they'd always been—molding themselves to be what the other needed. A dance they'd perfected long before war tore them apart.

"Bucky." Steve sighed, nesting his fingers the thick, lengths of his hair, cradling the back of his head in his palm. "Oh Bucky, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine. I never wanted, I'm just..."

"Don't go blubbering on me, ya big lug." Its Bucky's voice that gives away the threat of tears. "It wasn't as bad as you think it was."

"It was exactly as bad as I know it was." Steve's voice burning with passion and anger toward those who had hurt what was his. “Maybe worse.”

Bucky gasps wetly, shaking his head, but not denying it any more. “How much do you know?”

“Natasha got her hands on an old KGB file.” Steve takes to rubbing his back, the muscles have become too tense again. Steve wants to assure him that everything is going to be okay now. He knows he can’t. He’s world is too much of a mess right now to promise anything, but Bucky’s back in his arms for the moment and he’d give anything to keep that going.

He can’t help jumping when Bucky snorts. “Of course Natalia did.”

“Natalia?” A memory of Zola’s voice rattling off names and birthdates. “You know her?”

Bucky lifts his head to train his sceptical eyes on Steve’s face. “She didn’t tell you about our history?”

“She told me you shot her in Afghanistan.”

Bucky winces, guilt laying heavy on his face. “Some things never change. We’ll talk about it later.”

Steve opens his mouth to wonder what was going on, to press for details and get to the bottom of the mystery. Then he shuts his mouth and pulls Bucky’s head back against his shoulder. Tonight he will let the ghost lay in their graves. “Tell me the truth. Are you okay?”

Bucky doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t shake his head either. So its not the worst it could be. “I don’t know. It’s not as bad, as it was, right after the programing broke. But it’s not, I mean, it’s still, that was still … me.”

“No.” Steve growls, the fire that propels him through battle building in his belly, ready to rip to shreds whatever is telling Bucky that he’s to blame for this. One thing Steve won’t stand for, hasn’t stood for, is people calling his Bucky a villain. He cups his hands around Bucky’s pale cheeks, forcing the other man to look at him. “None of what you did was your fault. That was all Hydra and the KGB. You aren’t a monster. They are.”

“It’s not that simple.” Bucky argues weakly, like he doesn’t want to, but he doesn’t have the strength to believe it yet either. “You know it. Nothing in our lives ever was.”

“It is that simple. You were a prisoner, who was tortured and brainwashed. You didn’t chose any of it. You never would.”

There’s a heart beat of silence, nothing but the sound of wind and the city moving outside the cemetery walls. “You always believed too much in me, Stevie.”

“Not nearly enough.” Steve bites his bottom lip, debating internally, wanting what he knows he shouldn’t have. In the end he just can’t quite help it. He always did want more than he should have. “Bucky, can I kiss you?”

Bucky’s response is pull him down and press his lips softly against Steve’s, achingly sweet and chaste. Steve wants to melt against the warmth and spice against his mouth. It’s the first time he’s kissed Bucky since nineteen forty-three, and the first time he’s felt completely whole since. He tries not to rush, to take it easy and not startle Bucky, but he forgets himself pulling Bucky forward and slotting their mouths together tighter, teasing with his tongue until he opens his mouth and it gets so much better.

Homecoming. Plain and simple. It’s just like coming home for the first time. Both his arms around Bucky’s back, Bucky’s real arm twisted into his hair. He hasn’t touched Steve with the metal one, and Steve doesn’t suppose he can blame Bucky for that. It’s enough just drinking him in. A miracle he doesn’t deserve, but he’ll damned if he doesn’t work for it for the rest of his life.

Both their lips are trembling when they pull apart, air being more important than relearning old rhythms. Steve can’t help going back to tender, sweet brushes, fulfilling a craving he hadn’t realized he had until that moment. He can breath deep and easily for the first time since waking up out of the ice. Terrified it’ll be taken away from him again.

“Bucky, come home?” He asks in between kisses, unafraid to get down on his knees and beg if he has to. “Come home. We’ll take care of everything. I promise, just please, let me come home.”

Bucky pulls away abruptly, a chasm of space opened up between them in just a few steps. Bucky’s tense again, hunched shoulders, and fearful eyes. Steve steps forward, raising a hand to touch and hopefully reassure. When Bucky shakes his head and backs up, he lowers it. Heart entering his throat as panic takes him over. He doesn’t want to let Bucky go. He can’t. He just got him back. “I, I, I can’t. Stevie. There’s too much you don’t know. I’m not safe.”

“Okay.” Steve knows better than to argue, knows the rules. Bucky is dangerous. That doesn’t change how Steve feels. “Where are we going then?”

Bucky’s confused eyes met his, brows bunched together, making Steve want to smooth it out with his finger.

“I’m not leaving you, Bucky. Not now. Never again. If you don’t come with me, then I’ll just go with you. I don’t care which.”

Anger burns through bucky’s darks eyes, hands fisted so tightly that veins stand out on his arm. Steve stands unphased. Bucky isn’t going to scare him. Not like this. “What about the Avengers?” Bucky sneers.

“Natasha can lead them. They’ll be fine without me.”

“Sharron?”

“Doesn’t need me.”

“The Registration Act?”

“Not more important than you.”

When Bucky seems to stall again, Steve takes a cautious step forward. Carefully, he brushes his knuckles down Bucky’s cheek. “Bucky, I need you. Always have. It never changed.”

“You take me in, there’s gonna be trouble.” Bucky mets Steve’s gaze, no hint of teasing in his eyes. “I’m not me anymore and there are going to be people who aren’t going to like Captain America taking in the Winter Soldier.”

“I don’t care about them.” It’s not strictly the truth. He can all too clearly picture Tony’s face, and he does care, but not enough. “And no matter what, your my Bucky, if you still wanna be.”

“You’re still an stupid idiot, Steve.” Bucky smirks, not a real smile, but sweet enough that Steve knows it's a tease.

“You used to like that.”

“Still kinda do.” Steve doesn’t think he’s supposed to hear that so he doesn’t comment on it, even if it does make something lighten in his chest. “This ain’t gonna be easy, you know?”

“I know.” Confidence flows through him. He has no idea what’s going to happen to tomorrow, there’s a storm building on horizon, but Bucky’s standing right in front of him. That’s the good thing. The thing to remember.

Bucky takes tentative steps back to him before falling back into that one armed hug. The silence hangs thick and heavy between them before Bucky snickers softly. “Some kinda dame. Always setting us up.”

A startled chuckle escapes Steve’s lips, eyes once again finding cold grey stone. Peggy Carter. Sharp, brilliant, wonderful Peggy, who knew him better than anyone save perhaps the man in his arms. Peggy who challenged him, comforted him, helped him when he had no one else. He loved her. Loved her spirit and her smile, was incredibly proud of everything she’d managed to accomplish.

Then there was the man beginning to shiver in his arms. Bucky, who had been through so much and was still standing next to him. No one would blame him if he was angry and jaded, but here he was trying to come back anyway. Steve can’t resist planting a soft kiss into his hair, breathing him in.

Steve has loved two people in his life—Bucky and Peggy. One he’s never going to be able to get back. Their time is long over, but he’s got a second chance with Bucky, and he’s not going to waste this. Bucky deserves to be happy and safe, and if Bucky will let him, completely spoiled.

And when that inevitable storm on the horizon hits, well, Steve has something worth fighting for again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You have no idea how much it means.
> 
> Also I'm on [Tumblr](http://everydaybella.tumblr.com/) if you wanna join me. It's mostly just more Stucky pain.


End file.
